News reports indicate former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens may have been on a plane that crashed late Monday in the U.S. state of Alaska.
The state's National Guard said the plane was believed to be carrying eight people when it went down near the southwestern town of Dillingham. The statement said some passengers may have been killed.
The Anchorage Daily News newspaper cited friends of Stevens as saying he had been flying Monday in the area of the crash and that his wife was concerned he was on board the aircraft.
Officials said rescue crews were having trouble reaching the crash site because of severe weather conditions.
This is the third plane crash in less than two weeks in the large, sparsely populated state.
On July 29, a military plane went down near Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, killing four people.
Just three days later, a cargo plane crashed in Alaska's Denali National Park, killing all three people onboard and sparking a forest fire.
Stevens spent 40 years in the U.S. Senate, making him the longest-serving Republican senator in history. He was defeated in 2008 following his conviction for failing to report corporate gifts. The conviction was later overturned because of prosecutor misconduct.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.